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The Museum bei der Kaiserpfalz has developed a new mobile app that allows users to immerse themselves in the world of antiquity. The digital application focuses on three life-size Roman statues that originally belonged to a monumental, colored tomb. This burial monument is embedded as a digital reconstruction in the Roman settlement landscape of the 1st century AD and can be modeled astonishingly realistically with a 360° panorama as augmented reality.
In 1853, a farmer working in the fields near Ingelheim am Rhein found the three statues made of Lorraine limestone. Two are almost completely preserved, the third a torso consisting of the head and torso. The finder sold the objects to Albertus Gerrit de Roock, a Dutch merchant who amassed a huge fortune as a privateer and sugar producer on Java and settled in Ingelheim. De Roock, in turn, donates the statues to the Association for Nassau Archeology in Wiesbaden.
They will remain on the other side of the Rhine in the collection there until 2021. In the Ingelheim Museum near the Imperial Palace, there were only copies of the "oldest known Ingelheimer" for a long time. Over the decades, the statues have been scientifically examined several times. Ferdinand Kutsch recognized their outstanding quality as early as 1930 when he compared them to sculptures from the Roman burial road in nearby Mainz-Weisenau. He states that the Ingelheim figures have "a certain noble demeanor" and their heads live "from within": "There is throbbing under the skin and there is emotional tension in the face, (there) still lives a little spirituality in the Greek sense, and that is exactly what makes them stand out." The archaeologist Walburg Boppert agreed with this judgment in 2005 when, as part of her investigation of the Weisenau Gräberstraße, she described "the Ingelheim grave figures as the most successful works". Experts also agree on the dating: the Statues must have been made in the time of Emperor Claudius, i.e. around AD 50. Comparisons with other tombstones in the region from this period, such as that of the skipper Blussus and his wife Menimane, even suggest that the Ingelheim figures were made in the same workshop (the so-called Blussus-Annaius workshop).
In Ingelheim itself, the grave figures stood for a long time in the shadow of Charlemagne's Palatinate. With the return of the originals to Ingelheim and their digital reconstruction as part of a monument up to 15 meters high in its original context, the ancient works of art can now be admired again where they impressed so many travelers on the Roman trunk road around 2000 years ago should.
The app, which was developed with funds from the nationwide joint project museum4punkt0 , offers a lot of background information about the time when the tomb was created, as well as details about its scientific reconstruction. A special feature are the remains of the former painting, which can still be seen with the naked eye on two figures. Only thanks to this rare stroke of luck in archeology was it possible to reconstruct with a high degree of probability the coloring of the figures.
The statues also illustrate the somewhat abstract process of Romanization, i.e. the gradual adaptation of the local population to Roman customs and customs. Graves with figurative representations of the deceased were alien to the local Celtic culture, the custom only came to the Rhine with the conquerors from Italy. The clothing and jewelery of the two female grave statues are still predominantly influenced by the costumes of the local population. They probably came from the region, possibly even from today's Rheinhessen. However, both female figures also wear a palla, the typical long outer garment of Roman women. To a certain extent, this mixed costume marks the transition from the formerly Celtic to a Gallo-Roman society. The male statue, on the other hand, the so-called togatus, appears thoroughly "Roman". He wears the eponymous toga with which he presents himself as a citizen of the Roman Empire. Overall, the Roman grave figures from Ingelheim are a snapshot in a process that lasted many decades.
In the short film, a young actress slips into the role of the Gallo-Roman "Prima". She tells of the – naturally hypothetical – origin story of the grave on which her parents are depicted.
The "Ingelheim in Roman times" app is available for IoS and Android. It can be downloaded via QR codes (IoS and Android) on an information board. The information board in the shape of the male grave figure is placed on a heavily frequented cycle path - directly where the grave must have stood around 2000 years ago. The highlight of the application is a spectacular 360° panorama in the style of augmented reality. Further information can be accessed via various media such as text, audio and video.
The information board is on the service road along the Münzengraben north of the A 60 at the entrance to the motorway bridge. You can find the Google Maps link here
Museum bei der Kaiserpfalz
François-Lachenal-Platz 5
55218 Ingelheim am Rhein
Tel: 06132 714701Museum bei der Kaiserpfalz
François-Lachenal-Platz 5
55218 Ingelheim am Rhein
Tel: 06132 714701